


make the shape

by tastybaby



Series: real and undeniable [1]
Category: Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Lipstick, M/M, Post-Canon, dating apps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:14:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22251661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastybaby/pseuds/tastybaby
Summary: 3 years post-game, 3 years since Marnie took over Spikemuth's gym, 3 weeks since Piers started messing around on dating sites again.It was a screenshot of his own profile, swiped through to the third photo. A shot his bassist had taken behind the venue, after a show. The lipstick he’d been experimenting with was smudged, and he was watching the train go by out of frame, with a hand toying with the charm on his choker. Seeing it through Raihan's eyes was more charged, somehow.you look cute in this one
Relationships: Kibana | Raihan/Nezu | Piers
Series: real and undeniable [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1651729
Comments: 32
Kudos: 475





	1. Chapter 1

Piers hid his face in the pillow, keening back into the hips that cracked into him, making the bed below their knees creak from the repetitive motion. At least this bloke had bothered with a pillow case, which was more than he could say for his last Friday-night hookup.

It didn’t matter, he didn’t have to look at the guy’s face, and he could enjoy the company and the intimacy that came with having sex without having to care about what sports team the guy liked, or whether or not they were even remotely interesting to talk to. He was basically just another glorified dildo, but that was the arrangement they had made.

And when all was said and done, the condom disposed of, he’d been courteous enough to suck Piers off, and then he was slipping his arms through the sleeves of his jacket and thanking him for a good time. He made a mental note that he’d been a solid six out of ten, and he hesitated before ultimately blocking his number. Cab ordered, he figured he could be home by half past nine.

* * *

It had been three years since Marnie had taken over the Spikemuth gym, and she was getting to an age where he could talk to her more, so he wasn’t as shy about getting caught coming home from something like this. He still nearly burst a blood vessel the first time _she_ came home late from a date, but he made peace with the fact that it would weird him out forever anyway. 

She was sitting in their living room, Morpeko stealing laps of her tea on the coffee table while she grinned at her phone. Marnie pocketed it as soon as she heard him coming, but greeted him warmly despite it.

“Back from ya _date,_ mm?” she asked knowingly, and Piers sighed. 

“Come off it,” he dismissed, taking a seat next to her and ruffling her hair. She arched a brow at him before swatting his hand away.

After her defeat in the Champion Cup, Marnie had gone home and immediately shaved her whole head in their bathroom. Piers knew her well enough to know that she always changed her hair up when she was feeling frustrated or stuck, but it had been a pretty severe change, and he’d been a little worried. When he’d deigned to ask her about it, she looked at him with an icy stare and replied simply, _jus’ didn’t wanna look like no little girl anymore_. Fair enough.

Her buzz had grown into an unruly pixie since then, and with the addition of a brow piercing, she really was starting to look a lot less like a little girl. 

“Not a winner?”

“I told ya, I’m not talkin’ to ye about my _adult_ life.”

“Ew.”

“How’s Gloria?” he asked, eager to change the subject. Marnie’s ears turned pink and she looked away.

“...Fine. Busy. She might come over t’morrow,” Marnie cast her eyes aside. Piers chuckled, clapping his hands on his knees to stand.

“You know your girlfriend’s welcome to stay here anytime,” Piers offered, lingering at the wooden staircase. 

“Thanks.”

“Night.

“Night,” Marnie repeated. “Love you.”

“Love you, too. Don’t be stayin’ up too late, alright?”

“ _Night,_ ” Marnie warned. Piers climbed the old, wooden stairs with a smile on his face. 

After a quick shower, and the arduous task of combing out all of his hair, he rolled into his bed in a loose hoodie and some shorts, thumbing through the dating app he’d been indulging himself in for the last few weeks. He was pretty selective about who he actually met up with—they couldn’t be a fan, because that just made him feel gross, and they had to be looking for the same thing as him: no strings, casual, and with as little emotional intimacy as possible.

It wasn’t that he didn’t have the capacity for intimacy, it just wasn’t what he wanted right now. He’d been out of his last relationship for...what, two months now? Easing his loneliness with a random fuck was a lot more satisfying than forcing himself to make the shape of love with someone new and disappointing again.

He had almost given up on the evening’s romp through Fletchindr when he stopped and had to do a double-take. A familiar face—although not one he’d seen in at least a year, if not two—popped up on his feed, flashing annoyingly white teeth at the camera. 

Raihan, or, more likely, someone pretending to be him.

Piers was immediately skeptical. Most of these photos had been ripped directly from his social media, which, despite sort of losing contact with him, Piers saw quite a bit on his feed. At least whoever was impersonating him had bothered to grab them at a decent resolution. That, and the app was giving him a “distance away” reading that actually made sense for Hammerlocke. 

Piers wished they were close enough that he could send this to him, but he opted not to, because he didn’t need Raihan knowing he was sneaking around on this app in the first place. He thought about sending it to Nessa, because she and him _were_ close enough, but he had only recently convinced her to stop trying to set him up with her modeling friends, and letting her know he was dating again was sure to reverse that. 

Instead, he humored himself and swiped right, surprised to see that whoever was running this fake account had already matched with him. Huh. Fletchindr was daring him to make the first move and send a message, but he wasn’t prepared to confront a catfish head-on, so he ended up rolling over and falling asleep to a vintage horror movie flickering away on the telly instead. At some point, his phone buzzed, and he wondered if he forgot to block that guy’s number before dozing off again. 

* * *

_hey you_

_“looking for something casual” huh?_

_you free tomorrow?_

Piers felt like he was waking up with a hangover. He blinked, and read the words again. He could still scroll up and read past texts from Raihan, which were from—yikes—four years ago, so he _knew_ this was the right number, but there was no way that stupid profile was actually…

It startled him when another message came through, and Piers wondered if Raihan had been checking to see if he’d read his message from the previous night. 

It was a screenshot of his own profile, swiped through to the third photo. It was just a shot his bassist had taken behind the venue, after a show. The lipstick he’d been experimenting with was smudged, and he was watching the train go by out of frame, with a hand toying with the charm on his choker. Seeing it through Raihan's eyes was more charged, somehow.

_you look cute in this one_

Piers’s entire face flared up in an instant, and he wrapped his arms around his pillow. He supposed it wasn’t really _that_ forward, but finding his _dating profile_ where he’d been looking for casual sex for the last few weeks and complimenting him on a photo was a new kind of breached hull for their weird ex-colleague, friendly-but-not-friends relationship. 

Not that it was unwelcome, Piers realized with a bit of disdain for himself. Attention from someone as glamorous and well-liked as Raihan kind of felt good, as much as the thought of that disgusted him. He could easily pass it off as a fake account and abort the situation entirely, but he was curious, and it wasn’t like they worked together anymore. 

_Morning._

_haha, morning. so, you free tonight?_

He considered his options. Raihan had already mentioned a potential interest in keeping things casual. Going back to his profile—which looked completely different to him now with the morning’s development—he thumbed lazily through his gallery. He had honestly expected there to be more photos than there were, but Raihan had been very deliberate about the few he’d selected. They were all good, no surprises there, but once you got past the gratuitous shirtless selfies, there was one of him laughing with an arm around Leon’s shoulder, and another with him peeking out of a pile of baby pokémon. They were all charming in their own right, and it looked like he’d been working on bulking out his muscles since the last time they saw each other. Piers didn’t realize he was pressing sleepily against his mattress until another message from Raihan came in and snapped him out of it. 

_we don’t have to mess around lol. it would be good just to see you man_

Something about reading it in his own words put a clear picture in Piers’s head, and he was rolling over onto his back. Raihan could roll him over like that, if he wanted. He would let him cast a shadow over him, with that long, tight body of his, and Piers would hook his thumbs in the hem of his jeans, and he was sliding his hand into his shorts, breathing in choppy exhales through his nose. 

Raihan’s hands were huge, and he’d seen him lift up _Leon_ before, and with Piers having roughly half the muscle mass of either of them, and the thought of Raihan scooping him up in his lap had him hissing and pulling up his hoodie to spill over onto his abdomen. Breathless, both from the rush of starting his morning with an orgasm and the shock of the very real possibility that he was attracted to Raihan, he wiped himself down and gripped his phone with unsteady hands. 

_I think we’ll have time for both. Tonight works out well for me, actually._


	2. Chapter 2

Piers had been distracted all day. Marnie watched him miss his mouth twice eating a bowl of cereal, and even jokingly offered to take his temperature before he left for rehearsal that afternoon. His bandmates knew something was up when he kept singing the wrong verse to songs they’d been nailing for months, and eventually he had to rub his head and apologize and confess that he’d just had something on his mind. 

He had a good hour before he was supposed to leave, and he was already pacing his bedroom with his closet doors wide open. It wasn’t _really_ a date, because they were just meeting at his house, so he didn’t want to look like he was putting in too much effort, but in the same vein, this was _Raihan_ , and putting in the effort was the name of the game. 

But did it really matter? It was just going to come off anyway. Piers wondered if Raihan was the type that enjoyed undressing his partners, or if he would rather cut to the chase and leave their clothes in a pile by the door. Piers settled for a blend of both—a tight, black tank that he could slip off over his head, and a pair of distressed jeans with a button fly, so that they’d have to linger a few extra moments when the time came to unfasten it. He was tempted by his knee high boots, but once again, tripping out of your boots wasn’t very sexy, so he settled for some creepers instead. 

His hair took forever to do, like always, but he knew it would be a hassle to have to stop and tie it back later. He never really felt _dressed_ if he didn't have his hair up anyway. He grabbed a studded purse that was probably originally Marnie’s and shouldered on a chunky, oversized cardigan before pausing at the door to his bedroom. 

The lipstick he’d been wearing to shows recently was tipped on its side, a hair away from falling into the half-open drawer on his dresser. He wasn’t feeling particularly femme today, but…

_you look cute in this one_

Piers rolled his eyes at himself and grabbed it, swiping it on his lips on his way downstairs. Marnie was curled up with Morpeko on the couch with a bowl of noodles.

“Headin’ out,” he stated, wavering a little from the way she gave him a once-over.

“‘Nother date so soon?” she asked with a mouth full of food. “Hey, isn’t that _my_ purse?” 

“My hoodie you’re wearin’,” he called, grabbing his keys off the hook nailed to the wall by their front door. “Have fun with Gloria. Call me if ye need me.”

Short walk to the Pokémon Center, with its flickering sign, which was the only place that you could hail a cab in Spikemuth. By the time it arrived, he was tossing a cigarette butt into the trash and popping a mint. Smoking was a bad habit, especially before a date, but he was buzzing with energy and needed something to do with his hands. 

* * *

Raihan’s place was in the exact borough of Hammerlocke that he expected. He had already seen quite a bit of his flat on social media, so he didn’t expect to be particularly shocked by anything in the interior, either. 

He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to knock or just text him when he arrived, and after nearly a full minute of deliberating in silence, he opted for both. Raihan opened the door, Piers realized he was _not_ prepared to see his old colleague smiling down at him, but a little bulkier in the arms than last time, in a button-down under a grey jumper with a chain running under the collar. 

“Hi,” he smiled warmly, and Piers willed his knees to stay taut. 

“Nice to see you,” he replied cordially. 

Raihan was pulling him in for a hug. He couldn’t even remember the last time he hugged someone other than his sister. He had his arms bent all the way around his shoulders, and Piers had his hooked under his arms supporting his back, and he realized with mild horror that he was _smelling_ Raihan—and that he smelled really good. 

“You look good,” Piers added softly. 

“Thanks. You get taller or something, mate?”

“Platforms,” he gestured to his shoes when he pulled away, rolling his ankle to the side to show the thickness of his soles. 

“Ah, well they’re working for you.” 

“Thanks.” 

He followed Raihan in, and he was somewhat pleased to see that the place didn’t look too sterile. He was no interior designer, but Raihan’s flat definitely had personality. There were a few surprises—namely a very old-looking set of drums that were sort of shoved into the corner of his bedroom. _I used to play,_ Raihan had said, _but I was better at training Pokémon than keeping a beat._ He wasn’t unfamiliar with choosing which hobby to turn into a career, and he was glad Raihan made the choice that worked best for him.

* * *

To their credit, they _did_ spend some time catching up. Raihan had been giving his top trainers a lot more responsibility in his gym. Piers had just gotten back from a tour of the northern half of the country. Leon was doing well, and the new rule about champions serving limited terms he’d petitioned was going live next year. Nessa had a huge spread in some Kalosian fashion magazine coming up. 

But they had been sitting on Raihan’s bed the whole time, and eventually, he had reached over experimentally to brush Piers’s fringe out of his eyes. That lead to a brief comment about the Pokérus tattoo under his ear, and then they were staring at each other, and then Raihan was leaning on his palm to close in on him. 

Piers observed, and made a mental note of the fact that Raihan was a slow, passionate kisser. He felt like he was being savored, and like each brush of Raihan’s fingers over his jaw was so unbearably intimate that he was shuddering. Raihan was pulling him into his lap, and he made himself comfortable, planting his knees on either side of Raihan’s hips. If it weren’t for the gap between their heights, Raihan probably would have been at chest height, but with Piers looking down and him looking up, he could arch his back toward him without even craning his neck. 

“You’re so _light_ ,” Raihan admired, fitting his hands around Piers’s thin waist. “My fingers are almost _touching_.”

“You’ve just got big hands,” he countered, wavering between being coy and fawning. “And maybe I’m a bit petite.”

 _“Petite!”_ he repeated, “I’m worried I’ll snap you right in half. You really know how to make a bloke feel big.” He grinned, nosing along Piers’s neck and jawline. That was enough to make him soften, because Raihan’s lips felt warm and made his skin prickle, and he was angling away to open himself up a little more. 

“You like being bitten, or no?” Raihan asked. Piers hummed and thought about it. 

“Yeah,” he posited. “Try not to leave anything visible, though. I bruise easy.” He shuddered when Raihan greeted his collarbone with a swipe of his tongue. 

“Cool.” 

Piers thought that was a funny response, but he didn’t have much to say between the shy groans Raihan was sucking out of him. He was letting his hands slide down his waist to spread his palms over Piers’s ass, which was more than welcome, and hitched and pushed back into them. He brought one hand up to cradle Raihan’s head and play with his locs, which must have done _something_ , because his host exhaled sharply through his teeth and guided Piers onto his back. 

“You look really cute,” Raihan observed, flat palm easing the hem of his tank up past his navel. 

“Falling in love, are we?”

Piers thought it was a witty response, but arched a brow when Raihan didn’t respond outright. 

“Too soon to tell.” Piers pretended the honesty of his statement was lost on him, and opted to enjoy his touch, and the way his hips were flush against his thigh. Raihan swiped his thumb over his abdomen. 

“Didn’t know you had so much _ink,_ mate.”

“Surprised?”

“Not really. But it’s cool to look at.”

“You’re doing a lot of talking.” 

That made Raihan laugh. Piers had forgotten how warm his smile was. 

“My bad,” he chuckled sheepishly, dipping in to savor Piers’s lips again, and murmuring against them. “I’ll try not to be so distracted.”

Piers was about to thumb under the hem of Raihan’s jeans when he felt his phone buzzing in his pocket. He pulled away. 

“Sorry,” he fished the offensive thing out of his too-tight pants and sighed, pulling it up to answer. “Sorry, uh, just a second. Hey, Marnie. Everything okay?”

“Power’s out.” Piers tensed. 

“Need me t’come home?” 

Marnie sounded like she was hesitating. 

“Nah, Glo’s already here,” she paused again, “do ye jus’ wanna ask ‘em yourself? Kay. Bro, here’s Gloria.” 

Raihan rolled onto his side, arm draped over Piers’s waist with his head resting on his shoulder patiently. Piers mouthed an apology again, but he dismissed it with a wave of his hand. 

“Hiiii, Piers! It’s um, it’s Gloria,” the girl began. He always found it so hard to believe that this was the same Gloria that had kicked his ass so royally during her gym challenge. Her mother instilled some serious manners in her, and she was always jumping away from Marnie whenever she saw him coming, despite how many times he’d explained that she was allowed to come over whenever she wanted. 

“So, the power’s out, and uh, well, Marnie and I were just going to light the fireplace, but I—well, I didn’t want to just release my Charizard in your home without your permission, haha! So I was wondering—”

“Go for it. Marnie knows where the candles ‘re at. You two stay warm, an’ just make sure ye don’t open up the fridge unless ya have to.” 

Piers cut her off, not to be harsh, he just didn’t want her to spin herself in circles again. Raihan was chuckling in his ear. 

“She’s cute,” Raihan added, and Piers shushed him. 

“Raihan…?” Gloria must have heard, and her voice perked up. 

“Hey, Champ! Piers and I are a little tied up right now, need anything else?” he called over Piers’s shoulder, and Piers wanted to sink into the sheets. He did _not_ need Marnie knowing he was hooking up with _Raihan_. 

“O-oh! So sorry! I hope I didn’t—well, thanks anyway! Sorry again! Bye!” 

The call ended, and Piers ran his hand through his hair. Outages were happening a lot in Spikemuth lately, and not much was getting done about it. Raihan eased him a little with his lips pressing kisses into his jaw, but thinking about home and Marnie and nervous Gloria’s Charizard in his home kind of drew him out of the mood. Raihan seemed to pick up on it, and, still close to him, propped himself up on an elbow to meet his gaze. 

“Your Spikemuth accent comes out a lot more when you talk to your sister.”

“...Oh, yeah? Weird.” Piers flushed and averted his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry there's like almost no porn STILL i keep getting distracted about how much i like piers


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> after further inspection (in my own game), i realized that you can't actually fly a corvicab into spikemuth. the closest one drops you off outside the gates. it's a little too late to change that now, but i thought it was worth noting.

Raihan was lacing their fingers together, but his eyes were watching something distant, so Piers wasn’t sure he even noticed. 

“It’s not that weird. My sister’s been living in Unova for over a decade, but she gets a little Hammerlocke in her speech when she calls me.” 

“Oh yeah? How’s she doing?” Piers made conversation to be polite, but he was also enjoying watching Raihan peer off and say whatever came to mind. He hadn’t thought about the former champion in at least six years—and he wasn’t sure anyone did, really. Rose and his marketing team had pretty much crushed her under their boot when Leon won the championship.

“Amazing, actually. Her and her wife just had a kid.”

“Oh,” Piers pondered, “you’re an uncle. Congratulations.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Raihan grinned, thinking fondly of something. “It’s pretty great.” 

Piers gave his hand a squeeze, and Raihan must have realized he’d been holding it, because his eyes darted down and then back up, out the window, and Piers could see the heat creeping up his cheeks. Seeing Raihan get embarrassed was sort of charming. 

“I’m hungry,” Piers blurted out to pull his mind away from where it was headed. “Can I buy you dinner somewhere?”

“Isn’t that sort of backwards?” Raihan gestured to the bed. His smile made him feel playful, and he couched Raihan’s knuckle delicately between his teeth, making deliberate eye contact through his lashes, before pulling away. 

“We could order something.” 

He watched Raihan bite his lip. 

“If you want,” he said. 

“What’ll it be then, maybe a half hour?” Piers pulled out his phone, but kept watching him. 

“Something like that,” Raihan was creeping back over him, and settling on his chest. He had a hand curled around his waist, and Piers was a little concerned with whether or not he could feel his heartbeat pick up. He flipped through his options, and they eventually settled on a Sinnohan place—because Piers wanted something hot and Raihan wanted something with cheese—and it was ordered, so Piers could cast his phone to the side and let Raihan back in. 

“Thirty minutes gonna be enough for you?” Piers teased, but it sounded less sarcastic than he wanted, and he smiled to cover his miscalculation. Raihan either missed it or didn’t care, and Piers had already forgotten by the time that Raihan was gliding a hand back up under his shirt. 

“Enough for round one, at least.” 

“Optimistic of you.” 

“Just putting it out there.” 

Piers tired of biting his own lip and opted to drag his teeth over Raihan’s instead, which drew out a very satisfying shudder and a pointed exhale from him. Raihan’s hands walked all over his chest, and Piers could feel the strength in them, which he admired, but it also made him feel hot and pliable under his touch. Raihan hooked an arm under his shoulders to pull him up enough to slip his top off, and Piers nearly whimpered just from the implication of how _easily_ Raihan could move him around. He had no such strength, so he settled for drumming his fingers up and under Raihan’s jumper, to which he smiled and removed both layers.

In another instance, he might have seen Raihan’s musculature and let himself feel inadequate, but he wasn’t seeing Raihan as his peer or his colleague, but his _lover_ , at least for the night, and he was thrilled. Piers couldn’t decide where to put his hands, and ended up combing his own fringe away with one and tugging Raihan closer by the belt loop with the index of the other. 

“Wow,” Piers confessed.

“I was thinking the same thing.” 

Piers scoffed, but his eyes were blinking bursts of _kiss me_ off his lashes. Raihan must have been able to read that, because he was sliding back into place with an elbow to Piers’s right, and his thumb sweeping over his cheek. He sighed into Piers’s mouth, and they engaged in a tasteful bit of tongue before breaking away.

“This color looks so good on you,” Raihan mused, and Piers remembered with a start that he was wearing lipstick. And he’d been wiping his lips all over Raihan’s smug, stupid handsome face, which meant he probably had nothing left but a scarlet smear over his lips and chin. 

“I’m sure it’s a mess right now.”

“Yeah,” Raihan dipped in to graze teeth over his neck, and Piers shivered from the hand sliding down his chest. “It’s _unbelievably_ hot.” 

That did something to Piers, because the barrier masking itself as coy and chaste shattered, and he hitched, with a full set of fingernails scraping lightly down his back and begging him to _do something about it._

Raihan obliged, with his own hand palming through the tight— _too_ tight—inseam of Piers’s jeans. 

“You’re not wearing underwear,” he observed, voice lower and less sly than he was used to. 

“You’re takin’ your time,” Piers warned, still shifting his hips up against Raihan’s palm. 

He felt ridiculous for even worrying about what to wear earlier in the day, because at this point _he_ was the one who wanted to abandon his pants in the corner of the room. Raihan flicked all four of the buttons loose with ease, but still visibly enjoyed hanging on to each second of it. Piers was frustrated, because this was taking _too_ long, but even more so because he was _enjoying_ the wait, as unbearable and languid as it was. He let out a sigh that punched the air out of him when Raihan snaked his fingers into his fly and grasped him at the hilt. His hand was warm. 

Raihan was a few strokes in before he must have decided that it wasn’t enough, or perhaps he was just being conscious of their time, because Piers’s jeans joined his shoes on the floor at the side of the bed. Piers tried to decipher his thoughts through his unreadable expression, and he only got so far as “amused” before Raihan slid down his chest and pressed his cock to the outside of his cheek. He was pecking along the side of the shaft, and Piers shocked himself with a too-high whimper and a full-body shudder—he wasn’t used to this level of intimacy in foreplay anymore. 

“Fuck,” Raihan watched him, “I just wanna _play_ with you,” he said aloud. It didn’t even sound like he was talking to Piers, more like a monologue. Piers gasped when he wrapped his lips around him, and his eyes were screwed shut by the time Raihan was hollowing his cheeks.

Piers crashed between stifling himself crying out. Raihan made him feel like he had a string running up through the top of his head, and someone had just pulled it taut. He was pulling Piers’ hips up off the bed and cradling them with those _hands_ , and Piers had no choice but to throw his legs around Raihan’s shoulders and scrape his fingers through his hair when he started teasing his hole with his tongue. He was cursing and writhing in his palms, unable to swallow the groan that bubbled out from his chest.

“Raihan,” he breathed, a tone higher than he was comfortable with. Raihan’s head popped up over his hips.

“You okay?” he asked, setting his hips down and resting his cheek on his thigh. Piers couldn’t bear to meet the earnest warmth in his eyes, his own darting away.

“Thirty minutes, remember? Get on with it,” he posed it as a challenge. Piers knew, deep down, that he was anxious to get fucked so he could ignore the weird attraction he had to Raihan, who--he didn’t dare to think about it--would be an entirely inappropriate person to enter a relationship, because they had been _coworkers_. 

_Had been_ , a softer bit of his mind reminded him. _No longer._

* * *

Much to Piers’s chagrin, Raihan’s legs were too long to comfortably facilitate him getting fucked from behind like he’d been planning. That meant that Piers was going to have to face Raihan, which meant that Raihan would be able to _see_ him, which was _not_ the plan. Piers didn’t look anyone that fucked him in the eye, ever. Subtracting face from body meant that he didn’t have to humanize them, and he could zone out and separate any connoted emotions from what he felt inside of him. It was cleaner, and made it easy to ghost them later. 

He knew that he wouldn’t be able to completely separate himself from Raihan after this was over, but it was even worse now. 

That was what he thought, anyway.

Raihan had his forehead pressed to his, and Piers had his fingers spread out over the back of his neck, flexing his abdomen to absorb the impact every time Raihan pounded into him. Piers couldn’t tear away from his gaze no matter how hard he tried, and that soft part of his brain started to take over, telling him he was feeling the first breaths of new love, when Raihan buried his face in his neck, and the spell was broken.

“You okay if I,” Raihan paused to pant against his ear, and he felt like he was breathing fire into him, “if I pick up the pace a little?”

Piers caught his tongue between his teeth and hitched, turning his head breathing _yes_ against Raihan. He obliged, and it was over for both of them in a few beats, which was a first for Piers. 

“Holy shit,” Piers shuddered, past the point of betraying himself. Raihan was half-lidded and soft with his gaze while he pulled away, flooded condom the least of his concerns.

“Did you really just…?”

“Yeah.”

“Just from getting fucked?”

“No need to be smug about it,” Piers averted, but he couldn’t deny that it was out of the ordinary.

Raihan stepped away to toss his condom and handed Piers a towel, which he was grateful for, and Piers didn’t bother stopping him when he laid back down, head on Piers’s chest. He was hazy, so he let himself stroke his face, and he could feel Raihan’s pulse in his jaw. Piers opened his mouth to say something, despite not knowing what to say, but he was startled by the sound of the doorbell ringing. Raihan’s arm shot out for his phone, bringing it up to his ear.

“Hey,” he answered. "Yeah, sorry, I stepped out for a sec. You can leave it at the door. Thanks. Yeah. Have a nice day. You too.”

Piers felt obligated to protest, because the air he’d been putting on would be far more interested in eating a hot meal than cuddling with Raihan, but his arms were already around him, and the rise and fall of his back was cathartic, somehow. 

Raihan was leaning up to kiss him, and Piers let him in.

He thought to himself, _maybe_ it wouldn’t be so bad to indulge in Raihan’s company with a little more presence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i didn't really want to end this here, but when i was writing it just felt right. i might continue this plotline with a series someday, if i can manage it. i'm a little blown away by the amount of sweet comments i received on the first two chapters. thank you so much.


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